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On the last day of November, 2022, I was laid off. Like millions of other Americans, the inflation crisis had thrown my household into financial uncertainty. It’s been nearly two years since that day, and I still haven’t received a single full-time job offer.
During the roughly four years before my layoff, I was the breadwinner in my marriage. My wife left her full-time job to freelance and explore other career paths. In early 2020 she got into grad school. Then the lockdowns happened. The day after she paid her tuition for the regular in-person price, the school announced that her first year would be fully remote. Together we weathered the worst of the pandemic while living in the epicenter, New York City.
I hadn’t pushed to be the breadwinner, but I was proud to have that role. I felt selfless. I had always told my wife I’d support her in whatever she wanted to do. Now I was putting my money behind those words.
Before my layoff, my wife was about to start a new job. We were finally going to be full-time DINKs again. We were getting ready to move, try for a baby and think about a mortgage.
Then it happened. I turned my work email on in the morning and saw a letter from the CEO explaining that today was my last day. The next email was an invitation to a late morning call with my boss and the head of HR. They reiterated the letter. We said goodbye, and they disconnected all my work accounts.
I was lucky enough to receive several months of severance, and I had mountains of freelance work waiting for me. Through most of the first year post-layoff, I used these resources to pretend I was still the breadwinner, or at least feel like I wasn’t being supported. I insisted on paying the same bills, and I still offered to cover the check when we went out.
Applications and interviews all the while, but no offer. By June, 2023, all of my freelance clients had been laid off. They could no longer give me work. The freelance work market was as horrible as the full-time job market, perhaps worse. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find anything. For the first time since my early 20s, my income dropped to zero.
Starting in June, I decided to go all-in on accelerating a business I had long envisioned but sluggishly developed. My hope was that the money I had saved would last until I could get a job or more freelance work.
Despite my wife being supportive, it was difficult to give myself permission to focus more on a project than job hunting. She had left her job and gone to grad school. Shouldn’t I be able to work on a business without feeling guilty?
Time wore me down. By November, 2023, I had spent all my savings on the business. I showed my wife how to put her card on all of our bills.
If I had allowed her to help me from the moment after my layoff, I most likely would have had more money to invest in the business. Instead I had to seek help from family.
During November, my business made us vulnerable to a scam in which we lost a big chunk of our joint savings. It was money our wedding guests had given us all the way back in 2018.
My wife and I spent a lot of time discussing the idea of whether we “owed” each other something. I had financially supported her for four years. Did she owe me four? Was she now paying off that debt? Did I owe her the money lost from the scam?
Maybe this debate is part of the conundrum that comes with spouses becoming more equal on average. I told my wife she didn’t owe me anything for those four years of financial support, but she felt like she did. She wanted the score to be even.
When your partner doesn’t expect you to provide, is there any point in labeling yourself a “breadwinner”? I’m still pondering that question.
Today we are working with a couples counselor to assist us with formulating our long-term life and financial goals. We have considered the sad possibility that it might be a long time before I grow my business to profitability or get a full-time job. Since February this year, I have regained a small but regular freelance income. It’s better than nothing, but it hasn’t fundamentally changed our situation.
I think we’ve moved away from the idea of owing each other money. The hardships have also made us more open to relying on privileges we were once too guilty to fully tap into.
What we do owe each other is effort. We have tried to consistently recognize that effort. I see the hard work she puts into her job, and she sees my business progressing. She sees the hustle for freelance work and the interviews for full-time jobs. She knows I want the business to succeed so we’ll never again be at the mercy of layoffs or abusive bosses.
If I do regain my previous status of having the higher income between the two of us, I’m not going to insist on covering everything. I will listen to her, and we will keep with us the hard lessons of these past two years.
Bio: I am the author of “The Last of the Mentally Ill” and the founder of The Rauch Review, a publication about the intersection of literature and politics. We have reviewed books by reputable authors such as Cornel West, Harold Bloom and Chuck Palahniuk.
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